Diamonds are among the most beautiful of precious stones on Earth. Imagine the most perfectly sized, cut, and polished one in your mind’s eye. Picture its luster, its radiance, then consider its value. That diamond is a gift from God, but its value hardly ends with its physical beauty. It is also tremendously versatile and tougher than nails.
Diamonds are the hardest naturally occurring material on Earth. They are so hard that we use them to cut through extremely tough materials, like concrete, rock, and even other precious stones. Because of diamonds’ properties, they are excellent at boring holes with surgical precision. It turns out that diamonds are extremely efficient at cutting through other materials with the least amount of waste and collateral damage.
Diamond-tipped instruments allow users to be very intentional in their work.
God endowed women with physical beauty but also created them beautiful in a variety of functions, especially those requiring precision in the most severe environments and circumstances, just like diamonds. For example, a husband may take his wife out on a date and behold her physical beauty that evening. Then, the very next morning, before he even gets out of bed, hear her counseling their stressed-out teenage daughter, meticulously working through a difficult situation with a type of emotional precision that astounds him. His heart soars with gratitude to God for blessing his home with this beautiful “diamond”. As the proverbist described a virtuous wife:
She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.
…
Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
– Proverbs 31:10b-12, 25-26
Women are unique, as a gender, which means they are designed to do unique things. Diamonds are a great analogy – try cutting through rock with an opal, and you’ll end up with stone dust while the rock remains unscathed. My prayer is that women remember one very simple truth:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them.
– Genesis 1:27-28a
Both men and women were created in the image of God, yet distinctly different (read Equal Rights when you can). Like the Trinity, there are identifiable functional differences between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, yet they are all God. They are co-equal, spiritually, even though they play different roles. The same goes with men and women. It just so happens that, by God’s divine will, women are like diamonds, blessed with beauty and unique abilities that were designed originally to complement men. For example, men are often the “rock” women must cut through.
However you’d like to visualize women, my prayer is that you do so righteously. Women, like diamonds, are beautiful in so many ways. They are unique, precious, and invaluable, especially to the men in their lives (though not exclusively, of course – Titus 2:3-5). God designed it to be this way, so may I encourage you ladies to embrace all aspects of your beauty, sparkling vibrantly in every way (ref: 1 Timothy 2:10). This glorifies God, the One who intentionally created the person staring back at you in the mirror.
Love in Christ,
Ed Collins